Lucretius

Lucretius (c. 99 BCE–c. 55 BCE) is the author of De Rerum Natura, a work which tries to explain and expound the doctrines of the earlier Greek philosopher Epicurus. The Epicurean view of the world is that it is composed entirely of atoms moving about in infinite space. The implications of this view are profound: the proper study of the world is the province of natural philosophy (science); there are no supernatural gods who created the world or who direct its course or who can reward or punish us; death is simply annihilation, and so there is no next life and no torment in an underworld. Epicurus, and then his disciple Lucretius, advocated a simple life, free from mental turmoil and anguish.
The essays in this collection deal with Lucretius’s critique of religion, his critique of traditional attitudes about death, and his influences on later thinkers such as Isaac Newton and Alfred Tennyson. We see that Lucretius’s philosophy is connected to contemporary philosophy such as existentialism and that aspects of his thought work against trying to separate the sciences and the humanities.
Lucretius: His Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance is the title of a 2009 conference on Lucretius held at St. John Fisher College, when many of the ideas in these essays were first presented.

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Introduction

Lucretius (ca. 99BC – ca. 55BC) is the author of De Rerum Natura, a
work which tries to explain and expound the doctrines of the Greek philosopher
Epicurus (341BC – 270BC). The Epicurean view of the world is that it is
composed entirely of combinations of an infinity of sub-visible, indivisible
particles ...

Newton and Lucretius: Some Overlooked Parallels

Though the manuscript of the epic poem, On the Nature of Things,
by the Roman Epicurean, Titus Lucretius Carus (96–55 BC), was first printed
in book form in 1473, and in many subsequent editions, it was not until the
17th century that it began to have a significant impact on scientific thought, ...

Lucretius—His Ideas in the Language of Our Time

I wish to thank Tim Madigan not only for organizing this interesting
conference, but also for asking me to be on its program. When I was asked, I told
him that while I am an academic philosopher, I am not an expert on Lucretius,
with whose ideas I am essentially sympathetic, but whose work I have never
really studied, ...

Reflections on Paradox and Religio
in the Evangel of Lucretius

But though the tag is trite, and indeed is such a commonplace that its
denial could fairly qualify as paradoxical, even so—perhaps on the principle that
“naked is the best disguise”—it can be taken as a pointer to a notable feature of
Lucretius’s poetic and philosophic endeavor, a feature whose very transparency
...

“As Stupid as the Clinamen”?
Existential Aspects of Lucretius’s Swerve

In The Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir says that while human
life may be spontaneous at its base, it “always projects itself toward something”
and is not “an upsurging as stupid as the clinamen” (Beauvoir, Ethics of Ambiguity,
25). Clinamen is a Latin term that Lucretius coined to mean the unpredictable
...

“Half buried…/Or fancy-bourne”:
Unearthed Desires and the Failure of Transcendence
in Tennyson’s ‘Lucretius’

In December of 1865, Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) had dinner with
the politician William Gladstone, the Pre-Raphaelite artists William Holman
Hunt and Thomas Woolner, and the senior John Addington Symonds. After
dinner, Symonds’s son, also John Addington, joined them. Finding the company
still seated ...

Lucretius and Death

The topic of death is only one of several discussed by Lucretius in his
De Rerum Natura. The infinity of the universe, the relation between mind and
soul, and the development of human society are among them. But death is of
central importance to Lucretius and to the teacher he followed, Epicurus. ...

Lucretius on Death and Re-Existence

Lucretius, like his master Epicurus, was an atomist. The entire universe
was thought to be an infinity of atoms moving in an infinity of space in an infinity
of time. Humans too—bodies and souls—are nothing but elaborate and peculiar
collections of atoms. Death is the dispersal of these atoms. ...

Index

Contributors

Vincent Bissonette (Ph.D., CUNY) has written on the passion of
anger as it figures in philosophical and poetic texts from Hobbes to Coleridge,
and has published on the poetry of Coleridge and Dryden. He teaches English
at Allendale Columbia School in Rochester, N.Y. ...

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